The Madison Hotel owner faces backlash for eviction of Memphis artist

Owners of Madison Hotel are trying to evict Memphis artist Christopher Reyes, his partner and their two small children from condominium where Reyes has lived for 25 years.
Wayne Risher/The Commercial Appeal

Christopher Reyes, Sarah Fleming and their children face eviction from their Downtown residence.(Photo: GoFundMe.com)

“It’s horrible. It’s hard to get around the anger one feels and make an appropriate statement,” said artist Dolph Smith, who remembered Reyes as a promising student at Memphis College of Art decades ago.

“He’s done so much with his life. He’s just a special fellow,” said Smith, who was an instructor at the college for 30 years until he retired in 1995.

“Our community needs to be more giving from our hearts rather than the pocketbook sometimes,” Smith said.

Reyes was a founder of Live From Memphis, a website that showcased work of local artists, musicians and filmmakers before social media came along. It operated out of his residence. He’s also a martial arts instructor and visual artist.

Reyes moved into a vacant space above commercial storefonts at 1 South Main in 1993 and said he made many of the building improvements himself. He lives there with his partner, artist Sarah Fleming, and their two small children.

The Madison’s new ownership began eviction proceedings last summer, contending Reyes and his mother, Vernice Kuglin, have no legal claim to the property.

A GoFundMe online fundraising campaign titled “Save Christopher and Sarah’s Home!” began March 6 and was closing in on a $20,000 goal Thursday.

“Thank you SO MUCH, Memphis!! The fight is far from over - we will go down swinging…The Madison/Aparium will not be forgiven or forgotten,” wrote the campaign’s originator, MacKenzie Stonis.

"If you have lived in Memphis for more than six months, it is incredibly likely that you have encountered Christopher Reyes, Sarah Fleming, or a combination of their work," Stonis wrote. "Both of these Memphians have been outspoken advocates for artists, musicians, filmmakers, and creatives in the Bluff City for years."

Aparium is a Chicago-based hotel group that teamed with New York equity partner G4 to buy the Madison in 2016.

Yorke Lawson, a developer of Court Square Center (Lincoln American Tower and the Lowenstein Building), called Reyes the “definition of community development and stick-to-it-iveness. He’s raising two children Downtown. He could have been a big artist in many larger cities. He’s given our cultural landscape credibility.”

Lawson said Reyes is an example of Downtown’s growing revitalization pushing out someone who came in on the ground level and worked to make it better.

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Memphis artist Christopher Reyes is fighting an attempt to evict his family from an upper-floor condominium on Main Street.(Photo: The Commercial Appeal)

“A family is unjustly put out of their home, and a terrible taste remains in the minds of anyone who ever heard about it,” Lawson wrote in a letter about the eviction. “What Memphian in their heart wants to patronize this hotel going forward? What will Memphians say to their friends who are coming (to) town about the hotel?”

Reyes’ mother and developer Henry Turley Jr. say they entered into an agreement in 1993 that both parties believed conveyed Turley’s ownership interest in the upstairs condominium to Kuglin.

The Madison's lawyer argued his client is legally the property's sole owner.

During a two-day bench trial ending Tuesday, repeated efforts to introduce evidence about the intent of the 1993 transaction drew objections from the Madison’s lawyer and were rebuffed by the judge.

The building’s ownership over the past 30 years has been complicated by the fact that it was part of a Downtown Memphis Commission property tax abatement program from 1986 through 2016.

Under that program, the commission takes title and the developer technically leases the property back from the commission, with the developer making payments in lieu of taxes based on the property’s pre-development value. The entity leasing the property has a right to buy it back for a nominal price at the end of the lease.

Reyes and Kuglin said they were never given an opportunity to exercise their option on the upstairs unit.

Aparium is in the midst of a top-to-bottom renovation of the 16-year-old hotel, which wraps around the 83-year-old building at 1 South Main.

Aparium won a $100,000 grant from the Downtown Memphis Commission for exterior improvements to 1 South Main, where the hotel plans to put its full-service restaurant.